Negative Space and What Fills It: Art’s Absence
How come the instruction and creation of art has become so disincentivized and devalued?
The Common Core – Standardizing American Minds
The use of the Common Core and standardized testing in American education is doing a disservice to students as it does not adequately prepare them for the real world.
Challenging Environmental Racism in the United States: cleanup beyond spills
Housing in the United States: Separate and Unequal Racist policies and institutions perpetuate inequality. Housing choices for minorities have been historically limited due to racial zoning laws (now illegal but still practiced). These laws allowed banks and companies to deny loans and housing to people of color. Along with the legacies of slavery, exclusion acts, […]
The Difficult Road Immigrants Travel
People from all over the world immigrate to the U.S. to experience the American Dream, but when they arrive many face considerable challenges. Approximately 44.8 million immigrants live in the United States as of 2018 with 25% coming from Mexico, 6% from China, 6% from India, 4% from the Philippines, 3% from El Salvador, and […]
Legal, Modern Slavery in the US: Examining Prison Labor
To find contemporary slavery, one does not have to look far. It can be found right in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, except as a form of punishment. When emancipation led to Southern farmers losing their slaves, there was an increased demand for cheap labor. The provision allowing slavery in cases of […]
Art Museums: Sanctuaries for White Supremacy
As an art major with a concentration in oil painting and a Muslim woman of color, I can confidently say I have never seen art by or been taught about successful oil painters who share these identities. For an assignment in my advanced oil painting class, we had to recreate an oil painting by an […]
A Hidden Normal: Anti-Asian Discrimination
By Quincy Williams Anti-Asian discrimination is not a new issue or an isolated historical event, but rather a part of the American narrative. Stereotypes, whether negative or “positive,” like those depicting Asian Americans as a “model minority,” perpetuate fear or contempt toward the Asian American community. The timeline above, from the 1850s to the present […]
Boston and Ethnic Division: Helpful or Harmful?
Growing up just outside of Boston and visiting the city frequently, the various ethnic sectors were always apparent to me: Southie had the Irish, the North End housed the Italians, Chinatown was home to the Chinese. These communities provide a sense of belonging to certain ethnicities who say they can embrace their culture. However, they […]
Why Can’t We All Compete?
In 2004, transgender and intersex athletes were accepted into the Olympics— but not without public opposition and regulations. In 2015, The IOC (International Olympic Committee) and IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) set the following regulations for female Olympic athletes (Gleaves & Lehrbach 2016): 1. Legal documents of their female gender that cannot be changed […]
Incarceration Unmasked: Legal Confinement in the Era of COVID-19
Anna O’Shea “The struggle of being caged like an animal 24/7 is enough. But with all the added conditions it’s unbearable. There seems like no escape from this.” –Jamil Hayes (currently incarcerated, letter circa American Prison Writing Archive, 2021) [Pictured above, collaged mask containing quotes from Jamil Hayes and other currently incarcerated people, cited from […]
